Entry #4

             In the Introduction, various people were interviewed about different events which occurred in America's history. The main focus was on World War 2, but the Great Depression and New Deal were discussed as well. It was very interesting to hear the numerous reactions and memories of these events from the people.  Each person that was interviewed, had a different vision on the War and its results. Most of the people had flashbacks and spoke about the bad that happened before, during and after the war. One man who was interviewed was a Red Cross member during the war and remembers being happy during the war. He was happy and having fun during war because his job allowed him to support the public and provide aid for those in need. It sounded kind of sad hearing that he was having fun during a war, but if it wasn't for the war..his job would not have been in such high demand. It was interesting to hear one person enjoying the war, and it benefiting his career, and then hearing others complain about it. One farmer spoke about how the Depression completely destroyed his career, home and family. Because of the war, this farmer's home had gone into fore closure, he lost business because crop and cattle prices were so high and that affected his family as well. The Depression might have hurt many people, but the New Deal brought the United States a lot of new opportunities for those who didn't have them before. The New Deal brought job opportunities to women, and African Americans. Even though the New Deal had brought new jobs to women and blacks, 11 million people were still living in bad conditions. All of the interviews in the Introduction to this section were interesting, even though they were all short, it was nice to get several outlooks on the events. I think that the main reason that these interviews were in Stud Turkel's book was because it shows us, the new generation, how memorable these events were and how much they affected, and still affect our country. The second part was Bob Rasmus' interview, who spoke about the differences in his life before the war, and after the war. The way he spoke about his experience in combat was very detailed. I was shocked that he was able to speak about his experience in such detail from just his memory, the interview sounded like he was reading everything out of a textbook. He made several points about the War that opened my eyes to how tragic and real the war was. At the end of the interview, he spoke about how much the war affected his life in the long run and one of the last things he said, was "In a short period of time, I had the most tremendous experiences of all of life". By saying this, Bob Rasmus showed a different, more positive side of the war.  Both parts of "The Good War" were interpretations of the war and the experience that went along with it, which informed the audience of the reality and effectiveness of the war.